


Bad Things Happen Bingo [FE16]

by TK_DuVeraun



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Child Abuse, Damaged Vocal Cords, Domestic Violence, F/M, Friendly Fire, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Missing & Presumed Dead, Multi, Nightmares, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Trust Issues, hair cutting, non-descriptive gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-10-26 11:04:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 19,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TK_DuVeraun/pseuds/TK_DuVeraun
Summary: Hey, welcome to my Bad Things Bingo Collection. Will be a mixture of Linspar, Sylvix, Ferdibert and whatever else people request! Chapters titled with the pairing/characters and the prompt. Please go forward with discretion as some prompts may result in triggering material. Tags will be updated with each entry.





	1. Linspar - Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> [You can find the original postings (and submit your own request) here on tumblr](https://tk-duveraun.tumblr.com/tagged/bad-things-happens-bingo).

House Bergliez didn’t have a Crest. Most nobles felt pity for them. A red-haired kid, Ferdinand von Aegir, he’d repeated ad nauseum, as if Caspar could forget after the first three times, in particular waxed poetic about how having a Crest was peak nobility. Caspar had picked his nose and thrown the boogey at him. Caspar was seven and very happy not to have a Crest. He told FerdinandvonAegir, all one word, to go talk to his brother about nobility because he was a second son.

He thanked the Goddess his father didn’t like being in Enbarr and he was able to go home before running into the red-haired boy again. The moment he got home, he went to his mother to beg and plead to- But she interrupted him and said that the carriage would take him to the Hevring estate tomorrow.

“Really? Do you mean it?”

“Of course, dear. You ask every time. I simply arranged things ahead of time.” She kissed his forehead and sent him off to run in the gardens until dinner. It tired him out, but not enough. Caspar didn’t sleep until he was in the carriage and then he fell off the seat and slept on the floor, mud from his own boots caking his cheek.

Linhardt had a wet handkerchief ready when he opened the carriage door because Caspar was seven and never changed. They spent the afternoon fishing, though fishing meant Linhardt had a line without bait in the water and Caspar splashed around trying to catch a fish in his bare hands. (He managed it when he was eleven, but no one believed him and Linhardt refused to corroborate the story.)

Linhardt’s mother never bothered having the servants make up a guest room for Caspar. She was the one who taught her son efficiency, after all, and knew Caspar wouldn’t use it. Instead, Linhardt’s bed was piled with extra blankets because while the boys would share space, Caspar thrashed around so much his friend was uncovered and freezing by midnight.

That night, a thunderstorm roiled overhead, so Linhardt helped wrap Caspar in his blankets until he was swaddled and unable to move. It helped protect against the flashes and crashes of lightning outside, or so Linhardt told him before slipping under his own blankets and sleeping.

It was a bad night and Caspar both hated Crests and lightning, but mostly wished he could take Linhardt’s away. When the storm stopped flashing, it was Linhardt’s minor Crest of Cethleann that lit the room. He thrashed and moaned in his sleep, crying into both hands as his Crest activated.

Crests brought horrible nightmares and made Linhardt’s favorite thing a terrible trial. Caspar wriggled out of his blankets like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. His skin was itchy and warm every time Linhardt’s Crest flared to life, but he ignored it as he grabbed his friend’s shoulder and shook him awake. 

“There’s gonna be a war, Caspar.”

“Don’t be stupid. There aren’t any wars in Fódlan. And anyway, if there was, my father would just punch them until they stopped.”

“That’s not how wars work.”

“Shut up and sleep. The storm’s finally over.”

“Okay, but when the war comes I told you so.”


	2. Sylvix - Damaged Vocal Cords

Sylvain noticed immediately. It wasn’t that he’d received word about the neighboring territory’s heir over the course of the five year stalemate because he was too busy protecting the northern border to get mail. Sylvain just knew; he would have called it a sixth sense of having such concrete intimate knowledge of Felix wasn’t a curse.

Felix couldn’t speak.

He had no signs of illness, which filled the back of Sylvain’s throat with bile. If he wasn’t sick, he might be permanently mute. He hovered next to him, throwing a rebuffed arm toward his shoulders and joking like nothing had changed.

No one noticed anything off except for Claude and the Professor. They had a conversation in a glance and exchange of nods and Sylvain wished he could go back to the days when he had that with Felix. Back before Glenn died and they lost Dimitri to the darkness.

Without a word between them, Sylvain lead Felix to the courtyard where he’d thrown his gear. In the light of the setting sun, Felix uncrossed his arms and scowled. When that didn’t warrant a reaction, he swiped the underside of his chin in a sharp motion before pointing to Sylvain.

Sylvain sat on his bound bedroll and stared up at Felix. Though he didn’t think that gesture had explicitly meant “Say it” everything else about the interaction did. “What-” He coughed about the lump, the grief in his throat, “what happened?”

Felix fell into a cross-legged sit next to Sylvain’s pack and tore it open. He reached in and pulled out his map of Fodlan without having to look for it. He unrolled it and jabbed his finger at Fhirdiad.

“You went after Dimitri?”

Felix nodded once, sharp enough to cut silk. He grabbed the collar of his dark blue turtleneck and yanked it down, revealing an ugly, twisted scar that spanned from ear to ear.

“...Oh.” He reached across the space the touched the old scar, his heart dropping even further at how deep it went.

Felix grimaced and turned his head, but didn’t move away. Without looking, he pointed at the map again, mimed slitting his own throat and tossing something heavy away. Then, his hands lit with White Magic and he painstakingly dragged them across his throat.

“You healed it yourself? That’s amazing. I… I can’t believe you went through that. I’m sorry. I should have been there.”

Felix gestured too quickly for him to follow, but he got the gist: you would have died. Before Sylvain could defend himself, Felix held out his pinky finger.

“Yeah, we made a promise. I remember.” He leaned back and away, letting Felix’s collar cover up the scarring. “I didn’t think you’d come. That you’d be too busy commanding the Fraldarius armies.”

Felix shot him a dark look.

“Don’t give me that look. I’ve been trying to get out of being the Gautier heir my whole life. This was just the first time I actually had the courage to turn my back on my father.” He laughed like it was a joke and Felix swatted his shoulder. Then he laughed for real. “Hey, you know what I just realized?”

Felix crossed his arms over his chest and frowned so hard his face threatened to get stuck that way.

“I can say whatever I want and you can’t disagree with me!”

He jabbed him in the chest with a single finger.

“So if I just went up to the Professor and said this was us eloping, you’d just have to stand there and frown.”

Felix scowled and made a threatening motion.

“Nope, it’s too late, I’m doing it.”

Felix grabbed him by the hair when he tried to stand, then dragged his face close. He knocked their mouths together, lips brushing in a rough, perfect facsimile of a kiss. Then he shoved Sylvain away and jabbed his finger at him again.

“We could always make it not a joke.”

Felix scowled and kicked a rock at him before disappearing into the rest of the monastery.

But Sylvain woke up with Felix’s bedroll spread out next to his and his arm crossing the gap between them to hold on to his hip, so it wasn’t his worst idea ever.


	3. Ferdinand/Hubert - Rage Against the Reflection

“Professor?” Dorothea approaches with her hands folded at her waist. Her gremory robes are showing wear at the cuffs, but they don’t have the resources or time to replace them yet. “I know you’re busy, but I’m worried about Ferdie.”

Byleth feels her heart sink as she watches the way Dorothea sways in place and wrings her hands. The supply reports can wait. “What’s going on?”

“He hasn’t come out of his room since you got back from the Hrym territory. Lorenz couldn’t even lure him out with tea. Lysithea caught him sneaking into the kitchen for food last night, but he’s certainly not eating enough. I don’t know what to do.”

She rubs her temples and thinks. Hrym, Hrym… That’s where they learned Duke Aegir was dead and recovered the Holy Weapon of Cichol. “Of course. I should have made the time to speak to him.”

“It’s okay, professor.” Dorothea bites her lip when she holds out her hand. “You’ve had your hands full with our companions from Faerghus. Even I was shaken by what happened to… And I didn’t even really know Dimitri.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you. I… I’m just afraid it’s partially my fault. When I tried to get him to open up, he just ranted about how I was right and he’s a monster.” She looks down at her hands. “I never said that, but I certainly acted like he was a villain more than once.”

“It’s not your fault.” Byleth collects the supply reports. “Take these to Hilda. I’ll go talk to him, even if I have to break down his door.” She cracks her knuckles on the way. Breaking down the door might be a good outlet for her own futile frustration. Felix’s guilt over Dimitri threatens to swallow her up. If she had chosen to teach the Blue Lions class instead, would he still be alive? Would she have been able to talk him down?

The second floor of the dorms is silent. She feels the need to tip toe, less a heavy step shatter the tension holding everyone hostage. Her heart flies from the pit of her stomach to her throat when she finds Ferdinand’s door open and loose on its hinges. Weapons and armor pieces are scattered haphazardly, laying where they landed after being flung into the walls. The window has a crack spanning the length.

His desk is a mess of glass shards, the empty frame of a mirror gaping at her disapprovingly. There’s blood on the shards. It’s fresh and red. With a deep inhale through her nose, Byleth backs up and follows the blood trail out of the room. It doesn’t take her long to find the blood-smeared doorknob. She counts the doors on either side. It’s Hubert’s old room. 

She finds Ferdinand inside, clothes bloody and wrinkled. He stands in front of Hubert’s mirror sawing pathetically at his long hair with a shard of glass as he weeps. His hands are limp and unresisting when she takes the glass from him. He stares at her through the mirror’s reflection.

“I’m no better than my father, Professor. I thought it best I look the part.”

Byleth sighs and pulls his hair behind his back, brushing the severed locks to the floor. He had been too upset to start at his scalp, at least. He’s missing a few inches off the bottom at worst. She draws a sharp dagger to fix the ends. He continues to cry at the mirror.

“What kind of noble am I to abandon my emperor in her hour of need? To have no idea of the suffering of my family’s own lands. I knew we controlled the Hrym territory. I willfully chose not to ask why my father didn’t teach me about it. I let it happen, Professor.”

“You can’t control other people, Ferdinand.”

“I can’t control myself! My feelings!” He presses his bloody hands to his face. “I can’t properly grieve my father, I can’t make amends for Hrym because I’m obsessed. I can think of nothing, but- but what will happen when we face Hubert again. Will I stop you from striking him down? Will I move in front of the blow and be a traitor twice over? My weak heart says yes.”

She replaces her dagger in its sheath and pulls him away from the mirror by his shoulder. He can’t look at her, so she takes his face in her hands and pulls him down until she can kiss his forehead. “It’s okay to feel. It’s okay to be conflicted. We’ll take him alive. Just like Bernie. You won’t have to watch him die… or hear about it a day too late. I promise.”

He latches onto her like a lifeline, pressing his face into her shoulder and clinging to her arms. He sobs. They say nothing else as the sun sinks below the horizon and darkness falls over the monastery.


	4. Claude - F!Byleth: Friendly Fire

Claude is nothing if not self-aware. That’s his secret: he wants people to know he’s from Almyra. He wants them to know and treat him the same anyway. He wants them to know and love him like it doesn’t matter. So yes, Claude knows very well how obvious his heritage is and it’s entirely intentional.

In the same vein, he knows he has trust issues. How do you not have trust issues when your nanny who carried you almost as much as your mom poisons you for one of the other heirs? Never let it be said that Claude thinks he could forgive a personal betrayal. Lorenz doesn’t count, of course. He doesn’t pretend to be anything but in opposition to Claude and that’s part of why he likes him despite his many failings.

That is all to say, if Claude was struck in the back with an arrow fired by an ally, they would not be an ally much longer. Well, no. Their lands and people would still be allies, just the shooter would mysteriously die in their sleep three days after last seeing Claude. So when he sees an arrow in Byleth’s shoulder, undeniably his with its orange and yellow fletching, his heart plummets through the bottom of his stomach and down through the earth.

He’s not ashamed to say he avoids her, tries to hide and delay the inevitable. He’s wrapped up in his blankets in the commanders’ tent - that is, the real, unmarked one, not that gaudy mess of banners and flags in the center of the camp - pretending to sleep when Byleth finds him.

She makes him sweat it out, busying herself with stowing her weapons and removing her boots one-handed. He starts to doubt the conviction of her ire when she falls over with a squeak. She shakes him ‘awake’ with her booted foot. “Claude,” she whispers sharply. “Claude, wake up; I need help.”

He yawns and stretches, which he  _ never _ does on waking, but she doesn’t comment. He rubs his eyes, another fake movement. “Wha? What’s wrong?”

She taps his nose with the dirty leather of her toe. “I can’t get my boots off.”

Feigning ignorance, he sits up and plucks at the lacings. “Why no- Oh no, Teach! What happened to your arm.”

She kicks him in the face.

“Okay, I deserved that.”

She yawns, not faked. “Just help me get these off. I’m tired.”

With quick hands, he loosens the boot and pulls it off, followed by its twin. Byleth doesn’t move, just stays spread out perpendicular on her bedroll with her legs in his lap. Normally, he’d be delighted. Honestly, he is a little, anyway, because at least it’s a nice last memory before she turns her back on him forever.

Except she starts snoring.

That’s it. Not even a scolding or a ‘be more careful next time.’

His stomach does a somersault and then sticks in his throat. She doesn’t tell him to be more careful next time - not because there won’t be a next time, unlike what his traitor mind is screaming - because she trusts  _ him. _ She  _ knows _ he can’t be any more careful than he already was. He swallows around the lump in his throat and pulls the part of her blanket she’s not laying on over her.

He chokes and stifles a cry when he notices that she has the tail of his arrow, fletching slightly bloody and bent, pinned to her bandages like a- like a favor or a brooch. He ghosts his fingers over the bandages and lays down with wet eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO, SPELLCHECK, I DON'T MEAN FELCHING. STOP SUGGESTING THAT. (it's a nsfw term)


	5. Hubert-Ferdinand - Forced to Kneel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additionally contains blood, imprisonment and suicidal ideology.

Ferdinand didn’t know how long he’d been in captivity. The battle for the Bridge of Myrddin seemed like a distant nightmare, the shame of losing, or being captured far worse than the captivity itself. Not that his time in prison was comfortable. Once they were certain he wouldn’t die, his wounds had been left to heal naturally and without painkillers. Annette had apologetically cut his hair to his ears when it had become too matted with things he preferred not to think about. He was given enough food that his stomach didn’t hurt, but his arms and legs felt impossibly thin in his clothes.

The sunlight burned his eyes when he was dragged out the prison and put in a wagon that hit every bump and rock in the road. He recognized the scenery, at least. He hadn’t known he was being held in Fort Merceus, but it had a certain acidic irony. By the time he reached Enbarr, the battle for the city was over. Eavesdropping told him the kingdom’s forces were sieging the Imperial Palace, so Ferdinand wished them wet socks.

No one told him why he’d been dragged out into the burning sunlight. Maybe a public execution? That would please the Hrym territory, at least. An officer hauled him out of the wagon by his bound wrists, nearly dislocating his shoulder in the process. A different one swiped across his face with a rag that smelled of alcohol. It wasn’t until the fabric was chafing his forehead that he realized they were washing his face. Maybe without his hair, he was unrecognizable?

Was he to be slaughtered like a calf on the palace steps to lure Her Majesty out? It would certainly be a fate tales told for generations to come. When had his thoughts become so morbid? Months of derisively being told he was an enemy of the world, perhaps. Being told the grisley details of his father’s murder, maybe. It certainly felt like when they had cut his hair, stripping away the last vestige of his pride.

The certainty of his imminent death solidified in his stomach when Felix, Duke Fraldarius, the Shield and Sword of Faerghus, grabbed him by the collar and half dragged him the rest of the way to the palace. 

Hubert stood at the center of a circle of Kingdom soldiers. His face was streaked with blood and ash. His clothing was torn, his cape stripped entirely, and his wrists were bound behind his back. Still, he stood with his head held high, chin tilted aggressively up. He was betrayed only by a tremble in his jaw when Ferdinand was dumped to the ground. 

The certainty of death left him, not because he thought he was going to survive, but because there were worse things than death and he was going to be used to enact one of them on Hubert. “Run!” He croaked because he hadn’t spoken since his capture.

Hubert almost laughed. An upturn of the lips, a huff of air through his nose. “Do you expect me to be surprised, Beast King? He’s been your prisoner for months. Frankly, your torturers have no idea what they’re doing. Look at him, he still has life in his eyes and color in his cheeks. Did you truly think I would be intimidated?”

Dimitri, for whatever madness was in his head, let Hubert get the entire speech out. Then he grinned, all teeth and with every ounce of ferality he was rumored to have. He signaled to Felix, to raised a sword to Ferdinand’s neck. It smelled of fire and old blood. The king patted Ferdinand on the head, as if he were the animal. “No Vestra. I expect only one thing from you.”

Hubert’s eyes narrowed. The flaring of his nostrils was the only other sign of his discomfort, one easily missed by those that didn’t know him well. “And that is?”

“That you will not kneel.” Dimitri took a step back at his words, forcing Felix and his sword into prominence.

Felix grunted and scoffed, but eventually said, “Kneel or he dies.”

Oh.  _ Oh. _ That was cruel. He thought to thrust his neck onto the blade himself, but someone had taken a tight grip on what remained of his hair when he’d been staring.

Hubert took a step forward and the sword bit into Ferdinand’s neck. Hubert shrugged his shoulders, trying to seem careless. “It seems, Sword of Faerghus, that you have entirely the wrong idea about me. I am nothing, if not a practical man. Unfortunately, I am well aware of how Her Majesty’s tale ends.”

As if his legs had been knocked out from under him, Hubert fell to his knees. He even pressed his forehead to the cracked paving stones. “My pride is worth no one’s life.”


	6. Caspar/Linhardt - Missing & Presumed Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HURT NO COMFORT

It struck him like a bolt of lightning he feared so much. Caspar jerked and fell off the cot and onto the churned up mud under the medical tent. The croon knocked out of his chest sounded like a demonic beast’s wail. 

“Caspar!” Marianne rushed over and used every ounce of her strength just to lift his bandaged torso. “Did you have a muscle spasm? Where does it hurt?”

“Lin.” The syllable tore itself from his throat.

“Your limbs?”

“Lin!” He shouted and pounded the ground with his fists like a frustrated toddler. Why couldn’t he talk right? Why couldn’t he ask… Ask… Lin… He tried to howl, but it came out as a pained wail. He couldn’t even think what he wanted to say. Why, why not? His head wasn’t fuzzy with alcohol, the rest of his thoughts rang clear as the Church’s bells.

Marianne’s eyes widened and her posture shifted from mild concern to tight concentration. She methodically tapped up and down each side of his face. “Can you feel that? Just nod yes.”

Caspar nodded with a grunt. As soon as she moved her hands, he turned his head around, looking for Linhardt, but there wasn’t a speck of green in the tent.

“Alright, lift your right arm up, like this.” She demonstrated. “Okay, now the left one. Both at the same time. Any difficulty?”

Words stuck in his mouth, but he couldn’t even  _ think _ them. His face screwed up until it felt like his eyebrows were about to touch his lips, but no amount of concentration made the words go. He shook his head. No difficulty.

“Does your head hurt?”

Her question was the worst sort of magic. It hadn’t hurt until she said something, then it was tight and pounding and sharp behind his eyes all at once. With a moan, he pulled himself to standing, most of his weight on the cot. He slumped back into a lying position, his arm over his eyes. “Where Lin?”

“He must still be out healing in the field.” Marianne lifted his head with a hand and held something up to his lips. “You need to drink this.” When he hesitated, she said, “Now” with uncommon steel.

His head swam when she pulled the cup away, the tightness unwinding a little. Her hands felt like ice against his temples and the rush of White Magic nearly made him black out. “Want… Lin.”

“He’ll be here when you wake up. Sleep for now.”

\---

Linhardt was not, in fact, there when he woke up. With his boots half-laced and nothing on his torso but bandages, Caspar dragged his heavy legs through the camp. Linhardt was not in the medical tent. He was not in their shared tent. He was not in the mess tent. Linhardt was  _ not. _

Heart in his throat, Caspar shouldered past the guards and into the command tent. Claude and the professor looked at him with neutral curiosity. Hilda betrayed them with a choked sob before she covered her mouth with both hands. She sidled behind Claude to hide from his rage.

As if Caspar had anything in him to rage. Tears dripped from his voice, though his cheeks were dry. “Where’s Lin?”

“He is not among the battle’s casualties,” the professor said, her deadpan doing nothing to reassure him.

“Linhardt is a high-value political prisoner,” Claude said. “A former classmate, close to several of our generals, heir to an Imperial title… But I won’t give you false hope. It’s been more than a day. Even with Edelgard injured, Hubert wouldn’t sit on him that long. He was last seen… He was trying to heal Ingrid, but you saw the army of Faerghus, they weren’t really… Take as long as you need.”

“No. Lin isn’t dead. If he’s not here, if Edelgard doesn’t have him, that means he’s out there, alone. He needs me.” He grasped the lightning ward hanging from his neck. The sharp edges bit into his callouses. “He needs me,” he repeated.

“Caspar-”

He slashed his arm to cut him off. “I’m not fighting until I find him.”

The professor stepped away from the strategy table and gave him the lightest, most gentle hug. Her arms felt like white-hot iron brands. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder for a moment and then said, “Take your battalion with you. And get dressed first. Raphael will wait here for you, okay?”

He closed his eyes against the molten tears. “Thank you, Professor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning, though Marianne checks him for a stroke, Caspar is just suffering from aphasia brought on by cranial pressure. I hope I was able to portray the complete and utter confusion and terror that comes from that condition despite it being a non-issue in the long run.


	7. Felix-Sylvain - Clawing At Own Throat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY  
HEY  
THE TAGS HAVE BEEN UPDATED. **SUICIDE ATTEMPT WARNING**
> 
> It's non-explicit, but you will _know_ without question. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

The only people who liked soulmates met their partner as an adult. People who instigated the bond when they were old enough to understand the bruises, the pain without a source. Felix had been bound to Sylvain from when he was only a few days old. His earliest memory is his father yelling at Glenn about the hand-shaped bruises on his tiny wrist. He didn’t know many words, but he used all of them to defend his idol, not that it spared Glenn his punishment.

“I know you love your brother, but it’s not okay for him to hurt you.” His father’s eyes were wet and soft, as were his lips when he kissed Felix’s forehead.

At least Glenn didn’t hold a grudge. If anything, he was the most upset at whomever had hurt his little brother. He spent a month interrogating the staff, writing notes with his rumpled practice quill.

It was years later, when Felix was five, that they realized he had touched his soulmate at some point. After all, there was no other way for Felix, asleep in his warm bed, to wake up with frostbitten fingers and toes. There was a cut on his forehead, but that hardly warranted notice as Rodrigue soaked his son’s limbs in cool water and White Magic.

The problem was the question of who.

Rodrigue believed, and King Lambert agreed, that it had to be some page or scullery maid, since no noble child in Fearghus would suffer such injuries with such frequency. The problem lay in the fact that Felix had been to many noble estates and run through countless kitchens across the kingdom. The great hunt for Felix’s soulmate didn’t begin in earnest until he was sitting in the royal nursery with Dimitri and his fingers started hurting. Dimitri summoned his healer immediately, but no amount of White Magic could block the bond, could stop Felix’s fingertips from bleeding and his nails from breaking and tearing.

“I had my doubts before,” King Lambert said next to Felix’s bed in the middle of the night when he should have been sleeping. “But this? I’m sorry, my friend, your son’s match is…”

“I know.” His father sighed and brushed the hair back from his face. “Do you think a reward, for, let’s say, discovering them? Bring the child to Fraldarius territory, receive the gold, no questions asked as long as they leave forever?”

“I can’t think of a better idea.” He rubbed the star-shaped scar on the back of his left hand. “If we used our technique for confirming-”

Rodrigue covered the king’s hand with his own, the same scar blatant, even in the dim candle light. “Then it might escalate. They will fear the consequences of injuring my son. Directly or not.”

The reward yielded no children, but the questionable injuries stopped. Nevertheless, the king was careful to ensure Dimitri wore gloves at all times. When Felix next went to Fhirdiad, he was three months free of wounds. It had him at a lifetime high of cheer so infectious it spread to Dimitri and Ingrid. It took four days into the visit for anyone to notice Sylvain didn’t share in the happiness.

Felix climbed into his friend’s bed in the middle of the night. He pulled the blankets over their heads, so they could have a secret conference. He held Sylvain’s hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Miklan ran away.”

“When is he coming back?”

Sylvain wrapped his arms around his knees. “I don’t think he is. He hated me. And Father.”

“That’s stupid. He’s stupid.”

“...Yeah.”

“You can share Glenn.”

“Thanks.”

They didn’t get to share Glenn. At least, not for long. The Tragedy of Duscur consumed their lives. Felix drowned himself in training for a battle with a ghost. He almost felt bad for his soulmate, when he sank into a hot bath and felt every muscle ache. Almost because he was thirteen and understood what finger-shaped bruises around his wrist meant. Thirteen and could think of only one scenario that would result in the destruction of his fingertips. Thirteen and aware of the fact that for the suspect injuries to stop, his soulmate had to know who he was and didn’t care enough to reveal themself.

Attending the Officers’ Academy at Garreg Mach was a relief. He hadn’t had any contact with the Central Church or its servants when he was a child. That meant there was no chance his soulmate was sitting back and watching in silence, letting him suffer for no reason.

The students with soulmates paired up quickly. It was easy to match up bruises once they’d shaken everyone’s hand and gone through a few days of training exercises. Felix didn’t envy them. If anything, he pitied them. With both halves in the academy, they’d suffer twice as much for every battle. Not that anyone listened to him.

He rhythmically beat his training dummy while Ingrid argued with Sylvain behind him.

“First of all, you’re never going to be able to dodge like that in full armor. Second, how are you supposed to find your soulmate if you-”

“If I find my soulmate, how am I supposed to flirt with all of the lovely ladies-”

“This isn’t a game, Sylvain!”

“Yeah, so I’m not going to get needlessly injured for a whim that won’t matter when I have to go through with an arranged marriage and have Crest babies anyway!”

Though he didn’t turn, Felix paused at that. He’d never heard that level of venom from Sylvain before. A few days later, he cornered his friend with a flask of whiskey smuggled in from the village. Together, they climbed onto the roof of the dormitories and drank.

“This isn’t like you Felix. What, is it my birthday?”

“You’re better off without a soulmate.”

He laughed without humor. “And don’t I know it? All of Faerghus was in an uproar over yours. Come to think of it, it’s real insensitive of Ingrid to keep going on about them around you.”

Felix took a drag from the flask. “She’s Ingrid.”

“Fair enough.”

When the sun had set and the flask was empty, Felix stayed. Something in him, some tether in his chest wasn’t ready. And he was right to.

In a voice barely above a whisper, Sylvain said, “Miklan didn’t run away.”

“Ah.”

“When I was packing my things, Father came up to me with the Lance of Ruin. Made me hold it. Said that was the only bond that mattered and that if I forgot that… That… That I’d find out where Miklan went.”

Felix tried to take a drink from the empty flask. He threw it to the ground below. “I don’t see why my father can’t run Gautier territory until you graduate.”

Sylvain laughed until he cried, pressing his wet face into Felix’s shoulder.

They never spoke of soulmates again. There wasn’t anything else to say. Months passed by and Margrave Gautier made Sylvain ‘prove his worth’ before bestowing him with the Lance of Ruin. It was a threat. ‘I know you’re flirting with everything that moves,’ the lance said. ‘Miklan didn’t run away.’

The night the threat arrived at the monastery, Felix woke up trying to gasp. He couldn’t breathe. It hurt, it  _ hurt _ like someone was trying to kill him, but didn’t know if they wanted to break his neck or strangle him. He clawed at his throat, drawing blood. His soulmate was dying. Dying and would have been dead if their bond hadn’t shared the trauma. He fell off his bed and the next thing he knew, he was in the hall, dragging himself somewhere, pounding on the floor, the walls, because he couldn’t speak.

The boar woke first, breaking down his own door in his haste to enter the hallway. He took one glance at Felix before cracking through Claude’s door. “Marianne, end of the hall!”

Claude needed no more instructions; he ran bare chested and tripping over his sleep pants to Marianne’s room.

Dimitri knelt next to Felix and turned him on his side. He saw the blue tint to his skin and the blood on his throat. “Sylvain!” He shouted loud enough to wake the dead. “Sylvain now! You know White Magic!”

When he saw Marianne running down the hall in her dressing gown, he left Felix to drag Sylvain bodily out of bed. He shouldered through his door with another shout of his name that turned into a howl when he broke through. “In here! Marianne in here, now!”

Felix closed his eyes. If he’d had breath in his lungs, he would have laughed. Of course. Of fucking course. He sank into the pain, relished it. As long as he felt pain that wasn’t his, Sylvain was still alive.


	8. Jeralt & Byleth - Undeserved Reputation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild blood and non-descriptive gore warning.
> 
> A bit shorter today! Tomorrow's is a real kick in the teeth, though.

Byleth was eight when she first killed a person. She wore a leather jerkin over a shapeless black tunic and equally baggy breeches. Dad said it was to get used to the weight and feel of armor and under no circumstances was she to think about actually fighting anything. He’d had eight years to learn that wasn’t going to stop her, so it was his own fault for leaving her unsupervised. When she returned to camp, blank-faced and covered in blood, they called her the Ashen Demon for the first time.

She neither spoke no cried. After checking her for injuries, her father’s lieutenant crowed with delight. The whole camp cheered when the healer returned from the village with a tale about how someone had removed the salient body part from a known child abuser. Only Father looked at her with clouded eyes. Only he fought with her tension-locked fingers to remove them from the bloody no-longer-for-eating dagger. 

He helped her wash off in the river and walked her through treating the bloodstains on her clothes. He knelt down to her level and pulled her blank stare to meet his eyes. “It’s okay to not be okay, you know that, right?”

She nodded slowly, as if her face was pressed into a squishy feather pillow.

“Are you hungry?” 

Another nod.

“Do you think you can eat?”

That was a more difficult question. She tilted her head as she thought. Meat was completely out. Jerky looked too much like- “Bread?”

“Bread’s good. I’ll see if we have any ginger. That’ll help. If you have any nightmares, wake me up, okay, kiddo?”

She didn’t have nightmares.

She never had nightmares.

\---

At thirteen, she was finally allowed on jobs. She cut through her targets with short sword and dagger, both plain and sturdy weapons. She had all of the silence, but none of the subtlety of a thief. After the engagement, she sat motionless while their surgeon sewed her shoulder back together. It hurt, but it never crossed her mind to wince. People thought about that, didn’t they?

She remembered breaking her arm the year before and having to ask her dad to get the healer to fix it. 

_ “She’s fine. No swelling, no pain when I move-” _

_ “Mik, have you ever seen By flinch?” _

_ “Well…” _

_ “If you’re not gonna heal her, I know a mage in Gaspard territory looking for a job.” _

_ “I’ve got it. It’s just a fracture, untwist your pants, Boss.” _

Maybe she should start flinching. It seemed like a waste of energy, though. When the wound was closed, she flitted around the camp collecting blood-stained items to clean. Her father’s men were a hard lot, but few could stomach cleaning the viscera as well as her. The smell was really the worst of it, but she could just turn her nose off if someone had sections of bowel on their gear.

“Hey, kid, you alright?”

“Is flinching worth the energy?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Not really..? People usually rip their wounds open, actually, but it’s not like- Well,” he cleared his throat. “It’s no big deal if you don’t flinch, got it?”

\---

Her father reached up and brushed the first tear that fell from her eye. “You- You don’t have to cry for me, By. You’re perfect as you are.”


	9. Byleth - Claude + All Ten Elites Kids - Possession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the concept I developed is actually really cool and could end up as a massive WIP that I honestly don’t have the patience for, so I stopped at ~1000 words to keep it as part of the challenge. If anyone would like to steal, adapt or adopt this story, please feel free, just @ me if you do!

No one considered the implications of destroying the resurrected bodies of the Ten Elites. There was no good reason to. Necromancy was a word confined to fantasy stories despite what some legends about White Magic would say. Catherine, still fighting on behalf of the Church of Seiros, was the first to feel the effects.

The weak drizzle that started every time she stepped outside could have been written off as bad luck or just the result of sustained use of her Crest over so many years. Her emotions manifesting as magic she’d never learned, however, had no easy explanation. Maybe, maybe if she’d thrown a fireball at someone, she could have written off to that one summer she tried to burn down the tree that scratched her window in the middle of the night, but the spells that came from her hands had the sharp bite of lightning.

When she fell unconscious for two weeks, the news reached even Byleth and Claude in Almyra. They puzzled over Seteth’s letter for a week before receiving a second one. Catherine was dead. She had woken, growling with a man’s voice and destroying as much of the Church as she could.

The next to go was Felix. It was nearly a year later. Had Byleth and Claude been any other couple, they would have forgotten all about Catherine by then. Unfortunately, since Felix was travelling as a mercenary and pointedly avoiding anyone who knew him before the war, no one noticed anything until he was attacking the cathedral at Garreg Mach from the back of a pegasus, of all things. Seteth’s letter was equal parts grief and confusion.

Two wasn’t much of a pattern, but Claude had drawn stranger conclusions from less information. Because he’d studied the Ten Elites in depth. When he’d lead the Golden Deer house, he could have rattled off Fraldarius’ bust size. Fraldarius the falcon knight. Charon the mortal savant. He scrawled out nine letters in an afternoon, breaking three quills in his haste. While Byleth assigned them to their fastest wyvern riders, he called an emergency session of his council, making arrangements for a diplomatic visit to Fódlan, to leave by the end of the week.

Failnaught he retrieved from the royal vaults. It neither looked nor felt any different, but acid churned in his stomach regardless. The souls of the Ten Elites were taking over the bodies of their descendants. At a guess, Charon and Fraldarius took hold first because Catherine and Felix had both used their Crests and Relics more than, probably, the others combined. Sylvain had refused to carry the Lance of Ruin even before learning it was made of stolen bones and blood. He would probably be last.

“Hey, still better than our last reunion at Gronder Field, ay?” Claude said when everyone had gathered at the monastery.

Dimitri punched him hard enough to send him flying across the entrance hall. Not even Byleth protested.

“What are we going to do?” Annette asked, standing a good ten feet back from Crusher. “I get a rash if I even stand too close to a wyvern!”

“I think it might be more serious than a rash, Annie,” Mercedes said.

Sylvain turned to the empty space at his right hand and lowered his face, closing his eyes.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I’m just really scared. The words just came out!” Annette covered her mouth with both hands.

Lysithea, who had come with Lorenz, frowned and scratched the floor with her shoe. “I guess it’s a good thing Linhardt and Professor Hanneman have been studying how to remove my Crests.”

“What’s going on here? Holding a meeting in the monastery without even consulting me?” Seteth’s robes of office were a little crooked, but no one wanted to comment and draw his anger away from the much-more-deserving Claude.

“You forgot to write the Archbishop? I am sorry to say that even after all this time I expected better from you, Claude.”

“Seteth was already here. He didn’t exactly need to be told to show up.”

Seteth ran a hand over his hair. “Given who is here and the mess you have made,” he gestured to the pile of Relic weapons, “I imagine this is about Catherine and Felix.”

Claude clapped his hands together and held them out in mock pleading. “Yes. We would rather not all end up possessed by the spirits of our evil, dead ancestors.”

“And we can’t be sure it ends with us in the room,” Lysithea said. “Even though Claude left me out, I still inherited my Crest of Charon naturally. Why would the ghosts stop at one body when they were released originally by killing the vessel? And what about descendents with the bloodline, but no active Crest? Since it can skip generations, there could easily be something in there to hook into.”

Hanneman rubbed his chin. “It’s doubly unfortunate that Catherine and Felix were the first victims. Even if we had known what was happening, we would have been unable to restrain them for any length of time for research.”

“Speaking of research,” Linhardt interrupted himself with a yawn, “everyone take one of these papers and fill it out. We need to know how much you’ve all used your Crests and Relic weapons. For example, as a physical fighter, Lorenz has used his Crest only rarely, so he’s probably at the bottom of the list.”

Claude only glanced at the sheet before handing it back. “It’s either me or Mercedes next.”

Byleth took Claude’s sheet back from Linhardt to save the argument.

“Why would you say that?” Annette demanded. “What has Mercie done to deserve it?”

“No one deserve it, Annie,” she said. “But since mine activates while I heal and Claude’s been fighting in Almyra since the war here ended, we’ve likely used our Crests the most after Felix.”

Sylvain rubbed the back of his neck, but still didn’t look away from where Felix should have been standing. “Another unintended benefit of making peace with Sreng.”

Claude stepped up to Seteth. “Well, Your Grace, how do we fix this?”

“Now, Claude,” Hanneman said, “what would Seteth know about removing Crests?”

“Well he gave his to the Aegir family, so presumably he at least knows half of the procedure,” Claude snapped, his fear letting anger color his words.

Seteth’s nostrils flared, but he waited for his own emotions to pass before responding. “Very well, come. Professor Hanneman’s old office hasn’t been altered. It will be the best place to begin. Byleth, you’ll find Flayn in the greenhouse. I suggest you take whomever will not be directly assisting in the research to her to prepare quarters for…” He exhaled audibly. “Confinement.”


	10. Byleth-Felix - Came Back Wrong

The boar didn’t notice. Hell, the boar probably didn’t even know he only had one eye. The professor, he wasn’t going to think of this simulacrum as Byleth,  _ his _ Byleth, sure as the fires of Aillel didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. It was three days until the reunion of nothing was scheduled. Felix came early, not because he had intended to meet his old classmates, but because he’d heard a rumor of a black beast living in the monastery ruins and felt some sense of not wanting it to destroy the only place Byleth had called home.

What did he find? The boar. The boar and… whatever this professor was.

“Felix. Sit. You’re going to collapse from exhaustion.” The professor, who still answered to Byleth, who wore the same outfit, though tailored to her smaller size than the  _ real _ Byleth, waved him to her fire.

He wanted to snarl, but they already had a beast in the remains of the dining hall. He sat as far as he could from the boar while still in the halo of warmth from the large fireplace. The brick was already warm. From the cleared paths in the dust and debris, this replacement professor had been here with the boar for almost a week. He held his sword across his lap, ready to draw it and cut down either of… them.

“Let him collapse,” Dimitri growled, a minute too late and without any light of intelligence in his eye.

The professor did the head tilt Byleth did when a normal person would sigh.

“Who are you, anyway, Imposter?”

She moved her shoulders back, but no shock colored her face. “Me? That man said it’s been five years, but I can’t be that different.”

He drew an inch of steel. “Boar, did Sylvain ever flirt with the professor?”

The question seemed to penetrate Dimitri’s head one letter at a time. He growled under his breath and shifted, his shoulders looking like a wolf’s under his cloak. His eye narrowed at the fake, looking at her properly for the first time in days. His lip curled up in a snarl, showing teeth. His hand closed around the haft of his lance. “No, he didn’t.”

The professor jumped up and back, the Sword of the Creator in her hand and glowing. “What are you talking about? He followed me around like an imprinted wyvern for weeks!”

Felix rose slowly to his feet and drew his sword. “He never flirts with men.”

“In public,” Dimitri muttered.

“Are you in your right mind or not, Boar?”

Seemingly snapped back into his not-self, Dimitri snarled. “You’re not the professor.” He got to his feet like a hulking, lumbering beast. Dried blood on his lance head kept it from shining in the firelight. “I’ll send you back to the hell pit you crawled from, demon.”

The professor brandished the Sword of the Creator, still glowing. “If I wasn’t me, how could I use this?”

“I’ll find out when I tear apart your corpse!” Dimitri leapt at her, lance cracking the floorboard when she jumped away.

“Dimitri! Think this through! What are you going to do when Claude shows up with the rest of my old House? They’re not just going to-” She stopped speaking to parry another lunge.

Though she wasn’t Byleth, she was still holding back, undoubtedly to keep from injuring the boar. Felix approached from the flank to keep her from running, but he wasn’t so gone with bloodlust that he wasn’t listening. Claude hadn’t been in their house. Hell, Felix had considered joining the Golden Deer more than once and it was only Byleth that kept him with his childhood friends.

Dimitri, however, had lost whatever spark of humanity had flickered when he brought up Sylvain. “They can feast on what’s left of your corpse!”

Whatever was going on with the imposter and her delusions of leading the Golden Deer and not actually being Byleth, they wouldn’t learn anything. Decision made, Felix crashed bodily into Dimitri, knocking him to the ground. He locked his lance down with his sword and face the professor. “You think you lead the Golden Deer?”

Doubt, then fear took hold of her face. The expression of emotion was enough to freeze even Dimitri.

“Are you saying…” She said, carefully. “...That I didn’t?”

“Byleth was  _ my _ teacher,” Felix said with all of the impact of a thunderclap.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This premise is also 500% up for grabs! No need to credit, just @ me on tumblr or comment here so I can check it out if you write it. I love AUs!


	11. Felix/Sylvain/Claude - Worked Self To Exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's... fluff!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special gift for yorozuyas who is so hype about this ship.

Try as he might, Sylvain couldn’t figure out a way to blame the javelins of light that destroyed Fort Merceus on Crests. At least, not without pulling it all back to an illogical extreme of it was all the result of Edelgard’s war. He picked up the tactical figure he used to represent Edelgard. He’d craved a frowny face on her five years earlier, when she first declared war. He set her back on the map, on the palace figure in Enbarr. Had she recovered from Gronder Field? Probably. He wiped away the chalked-on injury mark with his thumb.

Dorothea’s figure was in Enbarr, too. Claude’s information said she and most of the Mittelfrank Opera Company were running an orphanage in the city. They didn’t know  _ where _ the orphanage was, but it should be easy enough to avoid, right? Sylvain gnawed on his cuticle and spun the little figure of himself around. Edelgard hadn’t exactly cared about civilian casualties, for all her talk of making things better for the commoners.

He tapped the map with the base of his figure. Without Merceus as a staging ground, their troops would be tired, on edge. The entire city was built like a fortress, with roads that coiled and doubled back, towers punctured through with archery nooks. He had a few sketches of the city, courtesy of Lorenz, who couldn’t draw and thus his were useless, and Lysithea, but the most useful one was Flayn’s map. It was an old map, one that predated the Empire proper and showed the ancient defences Edelgard was sure to leverage.

With a sigh, Sylvain shoved his little, red-headed figure back between Claude’s and Felix’s. He looked out his dorm window and saw the moon had risen high enough to be out of sight. That he was still alone wasn’t a surprise, per se, but it did sit heavily in his chest. The board moved to his bookshelf without a single piece tipping over, though he did turn Felix’s figure a quarter rotation so that it faced the same direction as the others.

Covering a yawn, he dragged his feet out of his room and down to the training hall. The beat of training sword against stuffed-dummy was far from rhythmic. Dull thunk, thawp, donks beat an uneven pace.

“It’s about time you focused on your training,” Felix snarled like a milk-drunk kitten.

Too tired to argue, Sylvain just snatched the dull edge of the blade and yanked it out of Felix’s exhausted grip.

“Give that back! Some of us-”

“Need sleep.”

“I can sleep when I’m dead.”

Sylvain leaned all his weight against Felix until he started stumbling toward the door.

“You’re so annoying.”

“Dimitri’s not gonna thank you for joining him.”

Felix shoved him off at that. He stalked ahead of Sylvain back to the dorms.

He wondered how Leonie had gotten Felix to stop practicing during the week he’d been recovering in the infirmary and she’d decided to fill in as herder for the two cats. She had complained that Sylvain had better die next time because she’d never forgive him for the curse. He just barely caught sight of Felix going into his room to shuck off his armor when he made it back to the second floor. He threw open the door to Claude’s room without ceremony.

Then blinked, rubbed his eyes and blinked again.

Claude was laid out on his floor, through laid was a stretch with the odd, stiff angles of his limbs.

“You look like you were electrocuted,” Sylvain said without the fear or urgency it should warrant. He was tired.

“Spilled… Paralytic….” Claude grunted through his locked jaw.

Sylvain stepped into his room like it was a bramble thicket, avoiding books, unlabeled bottles and lonely springs. Using a cloth, he closed the bottle of paralytic on Claude’s desk. He moved over the shelf of labeled bottles and rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. Claude’s handwriting was poor at the best of times, but the labels were written in code and smudged ink. He sounded the codes aloud in annoyed mutters. The anti-toxin was the eighteenth bottle and nearly empty. He held it in front of Claude’s frozen face. “This one, yeah?”

“...Yes…”

Of course, the dropper was broken. He carefully dropped two, not one, not three, drops into Claude’s mouth. Instantly, his limbs went as limp and heavy as a sack of flour. He snored.

Sylvain cleared a path from the body to the door and then unrepentantly dragged Claude out by the ankle. His head thumped against the doorframe, but that was his own fault, so Sylvain didn’t feel the slightest guilt.

Felix was a round lump of blankets in the dead center of the bed when Sylvain made it back to his own room. With a grunt, he threw Claude on top of him. Neither stirred. Bastards. He left his boots neatly next to his door, changed into his nightshirt and thwumped down between them and the wall. Being the lazy one in a group of workaholics was the worst.

But then Felix nuzzled into his hand and Claude made a sound like a purr and he resigned himself to another day of madness.


	12. Caspar-Linhardt: Knife To Throat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mildest descriptions of injuries, I wouldn't even call it gore.

“You knew better than to challenge Her Majesty,” Hubert says, though the words slither out of his mouth like venomous snakes. His dagger, purple with its own venom, is held to Linhardt’s throat. He’s tilting Lin’s face back with a tight grip on his hair.

Caspar sweats. His breathing comes in hysterical pants and he feels lightheaded. It’s not even a battlefield. They’re in the woods surrounded Fort Merceus. Linhardt had wanted to gather medical herbs he knew grew there. It was supposed to be clear of all Imperial forces, let alone Hubert. He roared. “Let him go, you dastard!”

“Such crass words. I always knew there wouldn’t be a place for you in the new order.” His eyes gleam with malice in the speckled light that makes it through the foliage.

Linhardt releases a breath that halfway between a sigh and a yawn. “What do you want, Hubert?”

“Now is hardly the time for your casual antics.” Hubert scoffs and lifts his sharp chin even higher. “But my desire is simple. Linhardt will return with me to Her Majesty’s service. His healing and research abilities are unmatched. It is time he gave up his childish pursuit of you and focused on the future.”

Linhardt does yawn then, fake, though Caspar is nearly too stressed to tell. “Or I could just do nothing and sleep in a cell. If you torture me, I won’t have the energy to heal, so-”

A crack, poof and plume of black smoke interrupts Linhardt. Hubert stands behind Caspar, pulling his dagger along the skin of his neck. He doesn’t sever anything major, but the wound turns green and black as the poison takes effect.

Linhardt pales and leans against a tree for support.

It’s all Caspar can do not to flinch into the sharp edge of the blade as he chokes on pain and bile.

“It won’t be you under my knife, von Hevring. This poison is of my own devising. Immune to White Magic, no cure… But of course, I have a serum that will halt the spread… If taken daily. You run and you have twenty-four hours to enjoy your freedom.”

Linhardt straightens, jaw hard and all traces of fatigue gone. “It’s tearing her apart, the second Crest. Her sanity is crumbling at the edges, as the Crest of Flames eats at her sanity, just as it did Nemesis. Even if you win the war, you lose your Emperor.” With sedate steps, he closes the gap between them. While his words still hold Hubert frozen, he takes Caspar’s hand.

“You kept pushing and nagging and pulling at me, refusing to just let me rest. Congratulations, Hubert, you won. I put my magnificent research skills to ‘more proper use.’” With his left hand, he pulls Caspar away and with his right, he thrusts out with a blast of crushing White Magic. “And my observations tell me Claude is a much better poisoner than you.”

He wraps Caspar in both arms and warps them back to the scout camp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got Bingo! That said, I'm still writing more, though they are coming a bit shorter. I have a nebulous desire to write some of my OC stuff, so I'm not sure what's coming next! Also look forward to some Canon-Canon fanwritten-Supports to be upcoming.
> 
> Requests for Bingo and anything else are still open, though no guarantee I'll do it. Please be sure to request[ via askbox on tumblr ](https://tk-duveraun.tumblr.com/ask)so I can keep them all in one place!


	13. Ferdinand/Hubert - Bruises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for evocative, if not graphic, child abuse

Only two days remained until the ceremony at the Holy Tomb. Hubert shared Her Majesty’s hope that nothing permanent afflicted their professor. Rhea certainly had a despicable thirst for something in her eyes every time she looked at him. As the sun began to rise, he entered Ferdinand’s room without ceremony, shutting the door behind him. “Are you prepared for… the… ceremony?”

He cursed his weak heart for showing a reaction to the sight that greeted him.

Ferdinand froze at the words and bowed his head, his bare back on display to Hubert. After a pause that sat for countless tense breaths too long, he said, “Ah, yes. As you can see, I was just getting dressed.”

Old tales told of whipping boys, servants that took lashes for noble children whose constitution could not be wasted on punishments. If any Adrestian nobles continued the practice, the Aegirs were not among them. Hubert fancied himself experienced enough in torturer’s arts to identify which implement created which scar, but there wasn’t enough unmarred flesh on Ferdinand’s back to draw definitive conclusions. Raised lines circled and striped his arms, stopping a modest two inches before his wrists, should his shirt ride up. Deep, purple bruises, only just beginning to heal, mottled what skin of his right arm could still be discolored.

The silence filled Hubert’s lungs like a poison.

“I cannot imagine this is a surprise to you,” Ferdinand said. He curled his shoulders forward in a shameful hunch, as if it could hide anything.

He crossed the chasm between them. Two fingers glowing with all of the White Magic he knew settled over the bruise, soothing the skin into an ugly yellow-brown of nearly-healed. Bodies nearly flush with closeness, Hubert closed his hand over the outside of his. “Let it be the greatest failing of her reign that it is.”

He jerked away and snatched his shirt up from where it laid prepared on his bed. “Ridiculous. I refuse to believe you could miss such an obvious-”

“Perhaps you should have pursued the opera, after all,” Hubert interrupted.

Ferdinand turned as he worked the buttons. His chest was worse for the depth of the scars and the discoloration that could come only from poison. And the clear halo of protection around his neck, should his collar ever become too loose. “Edelgard has, as ever, resolved the problem at its source before I was able to act, so it does not bear speaking on now.”

Hubert fought the instinct to seize him by the wrist and shove the bruises in his face. He settled for a sharp gesture. “This does not appear resolved.”

He did not meet his eyes. “I was the one to request to speak to him, knowing the consequences of such.”

“Why?” The question was like acid. It burned his mouth and mind both. “You know what he is.”

Ferdinand pulled his jacket down from where it was hung above his bed. “He is my father.”

“He is a traitor.”

“And I am a fool. Is that what you want to hear? I thought we had well-established-”

“Why?” The acid tore through his heart. “You are his heir. You bear the Crest-”

“Because I am a failure! Inconsequential! Again, we both know this. Did you come to shower me with recriminations or was there a purpose to visit?”

As Ferdinand tied his cravat, Hubert put his hands on his shoulders, slowly, with telegraphed movements and plenty of time for him to move.

He met his eyes, then, gold blazing brighter than the sunrise. “I am no more a skittish foal than I was yesterday.”

“If you are to advise Her Majesty, you will do it at my side and with the knowledge that this was never meant to be. You did not… deserve to be tortured, or whatever foolish justification lives in your mind.”

He threw his head back and laughed, the same practiced, cultured, pleasing-to-the-ear laugh he undoubtedly learned through inches of scars. It sounded so natural the bottom dissolved out of Hubert’s stomach. The man before him was a stranger. Instead of a golden set of ceremonial armor primed to be pierced with the weakest of blades, Ferdinand was all sharp steel, burning with all the golden fire of the sun.

“Of course, Hubert. It is as you say.” He slipped out of his grasp and opened his door. “Let us go dine with the others. The morning waits for no one.”

“This isn’t over.”

“It never is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I just wanted to say that if you're in an abusive situation or have previously been in one, you're not only not alone, but you don't deserve it and you're not stupid for having affection for your abusers.
> 
> The things that hurt you aren't less painful for you loving the hand that wrought them. You're not "less valid" as a victim for wanting to remain in contact. Your abuse wasn't "less bad" because you went back.
> 
> (And you're not hard-hearted, cold or wrong if you have completely cut contact)
> 
> No matter your circumstances, I ask only that you live your best life and spread compassion and positivity to break the cycle of abuse.💙


	14. Ashe-Caspar: Dragging self along ground

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, writing a ficlet about a Black Eagle and a Blue Lion students  
Me: Let's set it in Verdant Wind!

Ashe wasn’t the best cat dad, as evidenced by the fact that Cichol chose to sleep with Caspar, despite how he rolled and thrashed in his sleep. Linhardt had tried to console him, saying that the cat probably just wanted the warmest bed and Caspar was a furnace in his sleep as he burned off impotent desire to brawl. Anyway, he wasn’t the best pet parent, but he paid enough attention to Cichol to know that his furred friend was acting strangely. 

He pranced around the room, back arched and tail puffed out to three times its normal width. He yowled and danced sideways when Ashe went to pick him up and pawed at the open door. He went through the door and followed Cichol into the courtyard. The grey cat wove in and out of bushes, chirping and crying when Ashe took the long way around. “I’m coming as fast as I can.”

Cichol scaled the monastery’s outer wall and crooned mournfully when Ashe refused to follow. He walked to the closest gate and bartered for use of one of the guard’s bows in return for a basket of fruit tarts for his squad. Cichol meowed with greater urgency as they set off under the afternoon sun. Ashe had no idea what they could hope to find. The Knights of Seiros regularly patrolled around the monastery. And if he remembered right, Caspar was out with them to blow off excess steam since the professor had forbidden him from fighting anymore, as she said, tall guys.

Ashe glanced over his shoulder at the monastery, still clear in view, but growing smaller with each annoyed meow. “Did you kill a really big rabbit? A bird? Got it stuck somewhere you couldn’t…” He trailed off.

A shaking gauntlet clawed at the ground around the bend in the road.

His skin paled whiter than his hair. He recognized the burgundy armor. He sprinted forward, Cichol at his side. He slid on the road and fell to his knees next to Caspar. “Hey, hey. I’m here now. You’re going to be okay.”

Caspar lifted his head, though it lolled to the side and his eyes were hazy with pain. “Ashe. I’m so stupid.”

“Shh, no, it’s okay. I’ll get the Knights. We’ll have you in the infirmary under Mercedes’ care in no time.” His hands fluttered uselessly over Caspar’s shoulders. That was when he noticed the… message. On his back, painted in… in his own blood, was a simple scorpion. “Um, yeah. Just stay with me. Look, Cichol’s here. You don’t want to upset him, do you?”

“It’s… all my fault.”

Events blurred together, then, anxiety removing any sense and separation between things. He was explaining Caspar’s injuries and location to the Knights, then he was kneeling on the road, then Cichol was sitting on his shoulder yowling with the force of a black beast in his ear, then Mercedes was pushing  _ him _ onto a medical bed and Annette forced a cup into his hands and then… Then he was awake.

Ashe blinked at the ceiling before falling to the floor in a flail of limbs and tangled, white sheet. He crawled over to Caspar’s cot. Cichol was a loaf next to his head, purring loud enough to drown out the screaming in Ashe’s. The sheet over his torso was lumpy with bandages and his chest hitched every third breath or so, but his face was calm in his sleep. Pre-dawn light was all he had to see by, but Ashe thought there was more color in his cheeks.

His bloody armor sat on the floor, the scorpion facing the center of the infirmary.

Ashe swallowed the lump in his throat.


	15. Sylvain-Felix: Communication Suddenly Cut Off

It was a constant itch across his skin, like a poorly sewn seam that didn’t lay right. Felix should have been used to it, after a lifetime of words and marks writing themselves across his arms, but something about the bond didn’t allow for that. Annoying. Not that it hadn’t… come in handy. 

Vividly, he remembered waking up from a dead sleep to desperate scratching on his arm. He’d been seven and more than able to read the four clumsy letters… written in blood. Sylvain’s hair was still damp with well water when Rodrigue bundled him into their carriage and rode for Fhirdiad. Felix sat in Sylvain’s lap, blankets wrapped around both of them, and sobbed, clutching his mangled hands. He responded only with wordless murmurs and dry presses of his face into Felix’s hair.

Sylvain’s personality shifted after he moved into Grand Duke Rufus’ old room in the palace. The shadow disappeared from the edge of his smiles and he stopped flinching at the sound of heavy boots. Words like marching ants appeared in the middle of the night, saying what he could never voice about the Gautier family.

They spent a year turning the Gautier Crest into progressively more vulgar images on the meat of their arms near the elbow where it  _ usually _ wasn’t seen. (The Fraldarius Crest had some inherently yonic elements, but the worst Rodrigue and Glenn did was go on about Knighthood.)

The tragedy of Duscur struck when Sylvain is laid up in Fhirdiad with a broken leg. He was the first to hear and scribbled the news on his arm in tacky, green bruise paste. Felix showed his father in silence, with his teeth clenched on the meat of his palm as he fought off wracking sobs. 

“Royal family & Glenn dead.” Four words that smeared themselves all across Felix’s skin and sank into his posture and punctured his sobs. His fists twist into his father’s collar. “Did you feel it? Did you know?”

“No… No, my boy. I’ll simply… Never feel it again. At least… At least your brother was with people who loved him.” Rodrigue picked up Felix, even though he was thirteen, and carried him down to the kitchen. They raided and larder and drank Glenn’s favorite spicy tea with cold pheasant pie.

The hole in Felix’s chest felt like it’d never be filled and he only lost his brother. He didn’t know how his father could sit upright, could talk and eat knowing tight, royal penmanship would never appear on his wrist again. Felix rubbed the smudged letters on his arm and met his father’s eyes. “Why didn’t we live in Fhirdiad?”

Rodrigue smiled through the tears and for the first time since the letters appeared, Felix felt hope. “I suppose you’re old enough now.” He poured himself more of Glenn’s tea and wrapped his hands around the warm ceramic. “Like you and Sylvain, Lambert and I knew of our bond from a young age. I was moved into the palace as best friend, confidante and protector. We were inseparable. Closer than family.

“But when the time came to think about… Romance. Sex. Well, being raised like brother made is strange. He means… Means no less to me than any other soulmate would. And your mother was terribly jealous, of course, even if my heart was only for her. Nevertheless, that’s why Lambert agreed to take Sylvain in, rather than him living here with us.”

“Doesn’t Sylvain have to carry on his family?” Felix asked, still blithely unaware of his own position.

Rodrigue looked him dead in the eye and held his hand. “You and Sylvain only have to do what makes you happy.” The words unknotted something in his chest and Felix sobbed himself to sleep at the servant’s table in the kitchen.

“Dimitri’s alive” patched a hole in Felix’s heart, but somehow convinced his father to tear a larger one.

“Glenn died like a true knight, protecting his liege.”

The closeness between father and son was forever shattered.

\---

Because Sylvain hated Felix more emphatically than he felt anything else in life, he always carried a piece of charcoal with him. Any time, day or night, he would scribble something for Felix on his arms. Recently had been a rush of stick-figure cats. And Felix had thought he had been sneaky with his illicit exchange of strokes for purrs. Which meant the lack of tingling on his arms as he practiced in the training hall meant only one thing: Sylvain was sleeping.

He was still sleeping when Felix dragged himself into class, late, to slump disinterestedly at a desk.

“We’ve received our mission for this month.” Byleth didn’t look at Felix when they said the next part. “Duke Fraldarius has requested assistance from the Church with apprehending a group of bandits plaguing the Gautier territory.”

Annette spoke up before they could continue. “Why didn’t Margrave Gautier put in the request?”

Half of the class flinched. No one answered the question, though both Ingrid and Dimitri looked at Sylvain’s empty chair.

Byleth cleared their throat. “The bandits killed the guards watching the Gautier estate and their Hero’s Relic. The Lance of Ruin.”

Blood rushed out of Felix’s face and down through the pit in his stomach. Frantically, he tore his sleeves up, but there were no fresh marks. He stole Mercedes’ quill and scrawled “Wake up!” in sharp letters.

After less than a minute with no response, blind and deaf to everyone else in the class, Felix fled, knocking his chair over his his haste. Panting, he reached Sylvain’s room. Down at the end of the hall… No one had noticed the broken lock. Hands shaking, Felix pushed the door open. He fell to his knees. It was trashed. Messy and empty of the only thing that mattered.


	16. Claude - F!Byleth: Loss of Sight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Role Reversal :D

Her legs hurt as she climbed the stairs in the Goddess Tower. Five years. Humans didn’t simply sleep for five years. Despite everything, some part of her hadn’t really believed that she’d taken in the power of the goddess. Yes, she’d cut through the magic darkness with the Sword of the Creator, but the power could have been in the sword the entire time, couldn’t it? An explanation for a five-year sleep was harder to come by. She stepped off the landing and inhaled sharply. She drew her sword as she spun around, barely catching the chipped axe blade before it cut into her shoulder.

Her attacker froze and dropped the weapon. He was tall and shrouded in dirty green and yellow fabric. His hair was shaggy and nearly shoulder-length. A thick, poorly healed scar ran from his hairline, through his right eye and down to cut through the beard on his chin. His remaining eye was bright green.

“...Claude?”

“Teach?” He croaked. He wrapped her in a punishing hug, his arms like iron bands around her back. Unbidden a wail like a dying animal left his chest. He sobbed, pressing his single, crying eye into her hair. “You’re late.”

“Claude, what happened?”

He shook his head. It didn’t mask the tremor that went through his entire body at the question. “They turned on me, Teach.’ He pulled back enough to press their cheeks together.

Byleth didn’t miss that he kept his good eye ready to scan for threats. She ran a hand over his hair, each snarl and tangle pulling at her heart. “Who did? What happened?”

“Come on.” He pulled her away from the stairwell, away from the window, back into a shadowed corner from which he could see the entire room. He tucked her under his right arm, equal parts to protect her and to have her eyes in his blind spot. Axes in various states of disrepair littered the room, along with sharp wire and piles of dried plants. “After we lost you, I got everyone back to the Alliance. It was damage control at first: a lot of misinformation going around about Edelgard’s goals.”

Byleth touched the very bottom of his scar. “It wasn’t Lor-”

He flinched hard enough to interrupt her. “No. Maybe. It doesn’t matter.” His arm tightened around her waist. “My grandfather died. I was attacked at the funeral. The  _ funeral. _ In front of everyone and… No one raised a hand. I thought- I was so stupid. So naive to think I could change things.”

She pulled his arm to her chest and squeezed it, wishing she could do more. “Why didn’t you go home?”

He laughed, a shattered, hopeless sound. “Go crawling back like the coward they always knew I was? Never. They wouldn’t take me anyway.” He ran a hand over his ruined eye. “Not like this. So much for the Barbarossa Prince.”

What could she say? As much as she struggled to imagine her students turning on him, she hadn’t been there. Lorenz might have bent under his father’s pressure, but no power, not even Sothis herself, could have held Raphael back if someone attacked Claude. It didn’t make sense. Actually, even if Lorenz  _ had _ betrayed Claude, he’d never do it at his grandfather’s funeral. She could hear his rant in her head already.

But she couldn’t ask. Couldn’t doubt him, now. She’d have to help him recover and put the pieces back together herself. “What do you want to do now?”

“No idea, if I’m honest. I’ve spent the last three years just waiting for today, for you.” For a moment, just an instant, he relaxed against her before tensing again.

“What happened… after the funeral?” She asked as gently as she could.

“Something like a civil war. Short and bloody. Daphnel and Goneril were the last holdouts against the Empire’s occupation, but Judith and Holst were afraid Almyra would take advantage and invade. Vassal state to the Empire is better than razed to the ground.”

“Would… Almyra do that?”

“Well, my father thinks I’m dead, so…” He rubbed tears off his cheek, leaving a small swath of clean skin. “Anyway, Edelgard’s put most of her army in Goneril territory, so at least King Dimitri’s having an easy time of it. Someone tried to assassinate his uncle, but I guess it didn’t stick.”

The silence pressed between them far longer than would be comfortable for any normal person, but Claude was broken and she’d never been one for too many words. A small part of her felt a duty to the Church of Seiros and Rhea, but she’d never  _ asked _ to be given the holy duties and it was, frankly ridiculous, that she’d been given them with her complete and utter lack of qualifications. No, her loyalty was to Claude and her students, not the Church. Whether or not they had betrayed him, the others were at least not living in a pile of axes, dirt and rags.

“...Why don’t we go to Gautier territory?”

“Hmm?” He tilted his head, but didn’t look away from the staircase.

“Sylvain will help me.”

“Help you with what, Teach?”

“I’m a mercenary. We don’t abide oathbreakers. We start with Edelgard and move down.”  _ And hopefully discover the truth of what happened to you before we fight the others. _

  
  



	17. Sylvain - Felix: Hiding an Injury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing the tradition of "Sylvix gets soulmate AUs, but they go horribly wrong."

A low-level stream of insults and swears directed at nothing in particular was the usual for Felix. Well, for the Felix in Sylvain’s head. By the time the soulbond activated, he was used to waking up to Felix’s complaints. They didn’t exactly keep to separate tents in the field. So when the day came that Felix’s grumbling was  _ inside _ his head and not outside, Sylvain didn’t notice for several hours. He might not have noticed at all except that he kept thinking the name Dimitri instead of his usual pejorative. 

“Hey, uh, Felix, you notice anything strange today?” Sylvain asked, pulling his horse up alongside him.

“You paying attention for once,” he’d thrown back without a glance over.

“Ha, ha, but I meant more cerebrally.”

“By the goddess, Sylvain!” Ingrid jabbed him with the butt of her lance. “What he means is, happy birthday, Felix.”

“We have more important things to worry about than birthdays and fairytales,” Felix said. He jogged away from them, into the tightly formed infantry ranks so they couldn’t follow on their horses.

Sylvain frowned after him and scratched his cheek. He didn’t know how to feel. They were undeniably soulmates - he could hear Felix’s whining about himself in his head as he stared - so the rejection didn’t hurt as much as… confuse him. What point was there in pretending? They could die at any moment. “What’s gotten into him?”

“Maybe he can’t hear anything. It’s… Not great, waking up to silence.”

“I’m sorry, Ingrid.”

“Thanks.” She looked away. “I know it could be someone that’s younger than me, but… It did feel like losing Glenn all over again.”

He reached across the gap between their horses and squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll talk to him tonight. It’s hard to imagine him being disappointed over something like this.”

“Maybe. If I’ve learned one thing about Felix, it’s that you can’t really predict how he’ll respond to things.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Sylvain sighed and tuned out Felix’s muttering. He’d be gentle when he brought it up. Soulbonds didn’t offer any kind of real telepathy, so it wasn’t as if they were losing a tactical asset with his resistance. Actually, listening too closely to the mind whispers could be a detriment. Warnings without context. Alarms without direction.

The day’s march was the longest of Sylvain’s life, even though he was mounted for most of it. He envied Ingrid, who had switched to her pegasus to scout the road ahead. He could only listen to so many marching songs before his eyes crossed. He hoped Felix was suffering, too. He was going to have Old Brown’s Daughter stuck in his head for weeks.

Felix didn’t show up at the officer’s mess for dinner, nor did he pop his head into the command meeting to sneer at Dimitri. He didn’t even show up at their tent to sleep until the middle of second watch. “Go to sleep, idiot,” he growled.

“How’d you know I was awake?” Sylvain rolled over to face Felix and watch his shadow remove his armor.

“You sleep on your back.”

“Not always-”

“No, I can’t fucking hear anything. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted?” Felix threw his sword belts and they clattered on the ground in the silence between them. “I’m broken. Just like I’ve always been broken. Too many emotions as a child. Not enough now. Little Crybaby Felix just can’t get his feelings right. Well, I can’t hear my soulmate either, so there it is!”

Sylvain scrambled to his feet and grabbed onto his shoulders. “That’s not- No one thinks that, Fe.”

Felix grabbed his in return and shook him. “They don’t have to think it. It’s true. I can  _ feel _ you in the back of my-” He makes an aborted motion to his head, then turns his hand into a fist and pushes presses it over Sylvain’s heart. “But I can’t hear anything. Not a single one of your stupid thoughts that doesn’t make it out of your mouth.”

He closed his hand over his fist. “That’s okay. I was just afraid it didn’t… work. That we weren’t- But if you can feel me the bond is there. My thoughts are stupid anyway. It’s probably to keep you from killing me.” He pressed his face close, so Felix could make out the smile on his face.

“Why can’t I just be-”

“Screw normal. Normal has me marrying some airheaded girl and making Crest babies for the rest of my life. I’m much happier with you. Just the way you are.”

“Tch.”

But Felix let him pull him down onto their combined bedrolls. Let Sylvain remove his hair tie and work out the tangles and knots from the day. He couldn’t hear Sylvain’s dumb thoughts, but he did feel a vague happiness. A warm contentment. That could be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Autistic Felix? In my Soulmate AU? More likely than you'd think!


	18. Hubert/Ferdinand - Power Suppression

The air was sweet with lavender and chamomile with an undercurrent of sharp sanitization. Hubert gritted his teeth. He should have woken the moment someone entered his chambers, let alone when they saw fit to  _ move _ him. He kept his breathing sleep-slow and made sure his eyelids didn’t twitch and reveal his consciousness. A soft sigh transitioned into muted snores and the tension drained out of Hubert, only to be replaced by irritation. He was in the Imperial Infirmary; he would recognize Linhardt’s snores out of a hundred men.

Starting with his toes, he checked his nerves and muscles, twitching and shifting in search of injuries. Perhaps his latest poison had exploded in his face. It was a mixture of a strong soporific and a vial of rare tree sap that would cause amnesia. When nothing so much as twinged with discomfort - save for his lower back, but that was a result of his paperwork - Hubert frowned and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the medical cot. He looked himself over and patted his wrinkled undershirt. Everything was in order.

“Linhardt.” 

No response.

He aimed a Miasma spell at him, but nothing happened. With a frown, Hubert felt inside himself, but no, the spark of magic was gone. With the slowness of a panther on the prowl, he stood from the bed and prowled across the infirmary. He shook Linhardt’s shoulder without kindness. “Wake up!”

“Bwuh? Oh, good morning, Hubert.” He yawned. “How can I help you?”

“Remove this Silence from me at once!”

Linhardt blinked and rubbed his eyes before yawning a second time. “You’re not Silenced. At least, not with the spell. That would explain that tonic Edelgard had me drink. I knew I should have questioned it when she took the bottle back. If only I could experiment on it, maybe I could reproduce it…” He turned back to his desk and shuffled around for a fresh sheet of parchment.

Hubert resisted the urge to snarl. “Where are the rest of my clothes?”

“You’re wearing them. She had me drug you in your sleep. I brought you here for monitoring. Well, Ferdinand brought you here.” He shrugged.

He straightened, standing to his full, imposing height, even if Linhardt wasn’t cowed. “How many people were in on this?”

“Everyone.”

“What kind of a banal inanity-”

Linhardt spun around in his chair and leveled a rare glare at him. “Your arms to black to your armpits. Have you seen a sample of your dermis? It’s penetrating. I’d love to experiment on you and discover all of the detrimental side effects of Dark Magic, but she forbid it.”

He stalked through the Imperial Palace, servants scurrying out of his way with mouse-like squeaks. After a quick detour to his tertiary office for proper dress, he saw himself into Edelgard’s private parlor. She was conveniently having tea with Byleth and Ferdinand. Just the people he wanted.

He threw out his hand, gloved. “What’s the meaning of this, Your Majesty? You cannot expect me to do my duty hobbled like this.”

Without a change in her placid expression, Edelgard set her teacup on its saucer and folded her hands in her lap. “Hubert, how lovely of you to join us. Please take a seat.”

Breathing heavily through his nose, Hubert pulled out the last remaining chair and sat with all of the decorum he could muster under the circumstances. His decorum, however, didn’t extend to holding back the hiss when Ferdinand had the nerve to put his hand on his thigh. “Your Majesty-”

“Hubert, this is non-negotiable. We cannot risk the corruption reaching your heart. We won the war. You crippled Those Who Slither In The Dark. Unless you wish to be forced into early retirement or an early grave, you will perform your duties without magic. If you require an apprentice, the Academy of Sorcery’s latest class will be graduating in a fortnight.”

Hubert sat in sullen silence. 

Edelgard returned to her previous conversation as if he weren’t even there. Byleth joined in without hesitation, though Ferdinand’s replies were halting if he managed to get them out at all. He knew what was coming. When the tea was gone and the pastry tray reduced to crumbs, Edelgard dismissed them.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Hubert shoved Ferdinand against the wall, knocking a portrait askew. He hissed. “This is your doing!”

Ferdinand’s expression fell and his skin seemed to pale. He reached up and took hold of Hubert’s wrists. “Can you blame me for worrying? I simply inquired with Edelgard if the condition was serious, if it would… harm you. I saw no reason to lie when she asked how far the darkness had progressed.”

“I cannot serve-”

“I- Edelgard and I would both vastly prefer you alive than efficient.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two unrequested prompts left!  



	19. Claude/Felix - Backhand Slap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Domestic Violence

The deafening crack of skin on skin broke the quiet mourning in the camp. The Crest of Flames banners hung limp and damp from the morning dew. Felix’s panting breaths formed small clouds of fog in the chill air as the Crest of Fraldarius faded. He balled his hands into fists that trembled in time with his jaw. It spoke more to the soldiers’ surprise than discipline that no one approached to restrain him.

For their part, Byleth stood to the side, a frown pulling at their face.

Claude stood unmoved, almost heedless of the redness blooming across his face from the backhand. Sad green eyes rested in an otherwise even expression. Even though they were nearly the same height, he towered over Felix like a majestic stag in his prime while Felix panted and snarled like a wounded cub. He signalled ‘stand down’ to his guards that still hadn’t responded to the threat. He didn’t break eye contact. “Are you done?”

“You left him to die!” Felix slashed his arm between them, his Crest burning brightly a second time. “Is the Alliance not enough for you, Riegan?”

Still, Claude did not rise to meet the emotion. “He was a threat to the army. He attacked our forces and his own if they stood in his path. Attempting an alliance with Prince Dimitri would have been tactical suicide.”

“You were afraid the soldiers would follow him over you. You could never inspire the same loyalty.” When Claude didn’t respond to the acidic words, Felix ripped the gold armband off his sleeve. He threw it to the ground and added the silver earring, torn from his flesh, on top. He spat on both and turned his back, stalking off into the morning mist.

A heartbeat.

Ten.

Then Claude’s expression collapsed. He crumpled tight, his shoulders pulling in and eyes squeezed too tight for tears to slip through. He allowed himself a single, pained whimper before kneeling and scooping up Felix’s things. The bloody earring, he wrapped in the gold fabric and then he placed it all into a pouch on his belt.

Byleth put their hand on Claude’s shoulder. “Shall I go after him?”

Claude smiled, but he’d fallen back to his school days where it didn’t meet his eyes. “Thank you, my friend, but no. He’ll come back on his own, or he won’t. This is war. Sometimes we lose things no matter what we do.”

“But he’s being ridiculous!” Hilda said. Her hands were balled into fists and she shook with restrained energy. “I tried! I lost half of my battalion trying to save his idiot prince! Three soldiers died getting his body back from the Empire! You can stand there and take it, but I’m going to give him a piece of my mind!”

Claude didn’t grab her arm, didn’t have to. He gave her the lightest touch and she froze. “He’s grieving. No amount of effort on our part will have been enough, especially since I let Dedue sneak off with his body last night.”

“You  _ what _ ?!” Hilda howled, rounding on him. 

“He would have fought our guards to the death for his liege. It was the best option I had. We couldn’t afford him hounding our convoys all the way North.” He patted Hilda’s shoulder. “And I’m proud of how you lead your people. If I’d known Dimitri was so volatile, I wouldn’t have given the order. No one could have been expected to stop him.”

Tears crept into her eyes and she turned away. “Yeah, alright, I just wanted the battle to be over as quickly as possible.”

“We don’t have a good replacement for him,” Byleth murmured.

“I know.”

“Our plans for the Old General-”

“I know,” Claude interrupted, the hurt burning in his voice. His arms shook. “I’ll figure something out. I have a whole book of contingencies for Fort Merceus.”

“Do you need to take a day?”

“Yes.” Claude laughed, throwing his head back with hysteria. “But we don’t have one.” He took a deep breath and the emotion peeled off his face like wax from a spent candleholder. “I need three, no four, wyvern messengers. Have them come to my tent in half an hour.”

If Byleth meant to press, meant to question, it never crossed their face. They simply nodded and set off deeper into the camp.


	20. Byleth/Claude - Kidnapping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's fluff...y

A royal page sprinted across the long expanse of Claude’s office. It was ridiculous, really, his office. It didn’t have windows so much as arches open over his grandmother’s garden, hung with gauzy curtains that do nothing for the light or the heat. Wide, marble tiles and the sheer palatial size of the room kept it cool. He could fit six of his dorm rooms from Garreg Mach in it. Meanwhile, he sat in the dead center, at a human-sized desk with an inhuman pile of reports to read. It meant that he had plenty of time to notice and react to assassins, but it also meant the poor page was panting and out of breath when he reached the respectful distance for speaking to the king of Almyra.

Claude passed the poor, he checked, young woman his own chalice of rose water. Her hands shook so much that water splashed over the silver edges to splat on the tiles. “H-her royal highness, um, the royal consort, ah- the queen of-”

“Byleth?” Claude suggested gently.

“She’s been kidnapped, your majesty!” She looked ready to faint.

“Take a deep breath.” He nodded when she’d done so. “Alright, take a drink. You’re not in trouble.”

“Sha-shall I-”

“Shh, just relax. You’re not going to get in trouble and I’m certainly not going to ask you to do anything.” He wanted to pat her head. She looked all of fifteen. He should get her name later, have her assigned to the nursery when he and Byleth got around to putting someone there. Maybe once Byleth got back from her kidnapping.

“But your majesty-”

“She ate the goddess of Fodlan, remember? She’ll be fine.” He widened his eyes comically and wiggled his fingers on either side of his head. It was the wrong thing to do. The page screamed in terror, dropped the chalice and sprinted from the room. Even Lysithea had never reacted so poorly and ghosts didn’t even exist. With a sigh, Claude left his seat and began the journey across his office.

He would need to find someone to clean the spill and then Nader to convince the royal guard to stop mobilizing. An army would just get in Byleth’s way. Staff ran back and forth through the halls, tripping over themselves to bow and murmur placations despite the fact that Claude was completely unruffled by the kidnapping. Actually, his people were so anxious that he stopped and looked himself over, but, no, his clothing was in order, he hadn’t somehow shaved off half his beard (again) and he was neither sunburned nor too pale.

Finally, finally, he crossed paths with one of his mother’s servants who didn’t balk at him and instead stared at his king with the dead, uninterested eyes that only someone who had changed his nappies could have. “Could you find someone who isn’t panicking to clean my office.”

He got an amused eyebrow and the shallowest bow the court at large would find acceptable.

Next, Claude made his way to the guard barracks. It was a kicked over hill of fire ants. And Claude would know, seeing how his cousin had shoved his face into one. Twice. He chuckled to himself. And Lorenz thought he’d be a thorn in his side. 

Standing in the center of the courtyard amidst everyone preparing to depart was Nader. He was arguing with a lieutenant with one eye and a scar that pulled his mouth into a perpetual frown.

“Ho, Nader!”

“There you are, kiddo! Can you set this geezer straight about your little wifey? He’s trying to call your father out of retirement to come yell at me, too.”

Claude laughed and patted his old teacher on the shoulder. He turned to the lieutenant and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, a burst of red light cut through the sky. “Ah, there’s Byleth now. See? Everything’s in order.”


	21. M!Byleth/Felix - Ambush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post VW: Byleth had the Crest Stone of Flames removed via the same process as in [Pulse.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20578085)

Dappled sunlight made it through the tree cover to the trail. Felix and Byleth rode side by side, their mares walk in step through the sunbeams. Their armor was mottled green-brown, all of the metal panels and buckles purposefully tarnished to diffuse light. They wore only light cloaks without any heraldry to identify them. With his hair returned to its original color, Byleth could be, and often was, mistaken for Felix’s brother. It was a very intentional subterfuge to hide their true identities. For some reason people hesitated to hire heroes of the Unification War.

They rode with only the forest sounds and the steady clip-clop of hooves on packed dirt. Neither was much for words, the silencing invigorating them as much as the new dawn. Occasionally, Byleth would grin and hold his hand into the gap between them. Felix would snort, roll his eyes and then touch their gloved fingers together. And that was it. No words, just a simple touch, a brush, a reminder, a silent ‘Love you.’ They weren’t so quiet as to go days without speaking to each other, but it felt like it every time they entered a town and had to exercise their dormant vocal cords. 

Felix turned his head, flipping his bangs aside. “Do you think that beast is still in the lake?”

There had been many beasts in many lakes. Remnant demonic beasts created by the Empire or by the Slitherers. Even four years after the war, the beastial weapons continued to bite. Not that they complained. Crest beasts were something of a specialty for the pair. Byleth scratched his cheek. His stumble was starting to come in: patchy and short, even after three days. He’d probably never grow his father’s beard. “Lake Teutates?”

“It’s the only one worth mentioning.” Felix shrugged.

Byleth blinked and looked at his partner. “I guess we never told you.”

Felix pulled his mare to a stop. “Told me what?”

“That beast is actually Saint Indech.”

His face danced through a circus of emotions before Felix covered it with his palm and laughed. “Saint Indech? That giant, lazy turtle is Saint-fucking-Indech?”

“Hmm, I wonder what creature Seteth could turn into.”

“Seteth?” Felix scoffed. “I don’t know if I should be upset or disappointed that Claude’s insane theory about Saint Cichol was correct. Tell me he doesn’t know, at least.”

Byleth shrugged. “If he didn’t put it together after everything Rhea told us, I’d be disappointed.”

“Let me guess, that bird, the Windcaller, that was Macuil?” He continued at Byleth’s nod. “Explains why it had those weapons. Any other saintly beasts wandering the world?”

The dent in Byleth’s heart where the Crest Stone of Flames once sat ached, so he rubbed his chest over it.

“Hurt?”

“No. And no more that I know of, but some could have been hiding and never joined Seiros in the War of Heroes.”

“Heroes.” Felix scoffed. He had a scar that covered the length of his left arm from the resurrected Fraldarius.

After an exchange of shrugs, they continued down the forest trail. A rumble in the distance was either a thunderclap or a rockslide, but they couldn’t see enough of the sky to know for sure. The trail twisted sharply to the left ahead. Felix held up his hand in a silent ‘Stop.’

Byleth closed his eyes and focused on his ears. He heard it, too, the quiet chink of metal on metal, the shickt of a blade being drawn from a scabbard. Silently, he drew his own blade, a beautiful steel sword that had replaced the grotesque Sword of the Creator. At his side, Felix drew the Sword of Moralta. The inscribed Crest of Fraldarius glowed as the weapon resonated with his blood.

With a silent signal, they charged around the corner and into the ambush.


	22. Byleth/Claude Tearful Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT WHO'S READY TO FUCKING SUFFER???

Byleth held her breath as the bodies of Nemesis and his resurrected Ten Elites dissolved into dust blown away on a mystic wind. She turned, looking for her heart, for Claude, but she couldn’t see anything past the width of Raphael’s shoulders. He picked her up and spun her around. He was congratulating her. They all were, all of her students. At first, she couldn’t hear them over her phantom pulse in her ears. Yes, yes, she’d won, but where was  _ Claude? _

Eventually, Lorenz had his lips pursed in that way he crooked them after asking a question and she turned her ears back on. The victory belonged to everyone, not just her and Claude. She could see him once they were safely ensconced in the monastery. “What was that Lorenz?”

“Do you think those were truly the spirits of our ancestors, Professor? They certainly matched the descriptions from the War of Heroes.” He adjusted the charred remains of his rose pin.

She rubbed her cheek, feeling the ash and blood mix and congeal into a horrific sludge to wash off later. “I think they were just shadows with the ‘right’ appearances. These people seemed to have an affinity for… dramatic irony.”

“It will certainly make the tales for our descendents more interesting.”

“And think of the painting! I wish I’d brought my sketchbook.”

Byleth pulled Ignatz, whole, uninjured Ignatz, into a hug. “I’m glad you didn’t. I just want to… Go home. And rest.”

“But not for another five years, right Professor?” Hilda put a hand on the center of her back and guided her purposefully across the battlefield. 

It bothered her that they were so unsubtly keeping her away from Claude, but that was standard. Ever since they learned of her ability to wind back time, they did everything in their power to hide even the most minor of injuries lest she be tempted to push her power and try to fix things. She considered fighting against them, insisting to see him, but the war was over. Truly, properly over. She’d let them have this one.

\---

The celebratory feast filled Garreg Mach Monastery with music, light and food. Lorenz played a delicate wind instrument next to Ashe, who had a brass horn with three times the twists and spirals as a command horn. Hilda joined in the singing, loud, out of tune, but still enjoyed by everyone. Annette and Mercedes went around the hall coaxing everyone into dances. Nothing like the prim, proper noble dances, just jaunty, energic, folk dances with lots of kicking and yelling and spinning until everyone sported smiles and flushed cheeks.

The cheer did nothing to invigorate Byleth. She felt empty from the top of her head to the soles of her boots and down below them until it reached the bedrock under the Ohgma Mountains. Wielding the Sword of the Creator felt like pumping her heartblood into every strike and jab. She would return it to Serios’ casket and never touch it again. After that, she didn’t know. The war didn’t feel truly over. Not after two false-starts on celebrations. Tears of exhaustion pricked her eyes and she felt like a toddler who’d missed their nap.

After a half-hearted dance with Sylvain, who couldn’t take his eyes off Felix the entire time, she snuck away to her room. Without even changing her clothes, she flopped down on her stomach and fell asleep so fast and so hard she may as well have fainted.

\---

The next morning, Annette dragged her first to the baths and then into the sauna. Byleth didn’t stop the charade until she was rambling something about an exfoliating mask and other words she didn’t think were real. “I’m going to eat. And then I am going to see Claude. And no one is going to stop me. Go ahead and tell the others with planned distractions to leave me alone. No one will appreciate it if I have to start cutting through the walls to get to the infirmary.”

Annette squeaked, nodded and sprinted off, tripping over first the door frame and then seemingly nothing once she was outside. 

The food tasted like so much ash in her mouth, but she’d eaten plenty of truly ash-flavored food over the course of the war. And at least it didn’t have the… crunchy bits that were common to Flayn’s meals. Dimitri had nearly returned to himself, but with the war over he’d return to Fhirdiad, taking Dedue and the one true source of delightful meals with him. And Ashe, she supposed, but he and Dedue were rather a matched set, since the latter reappeared. A matched set. Perfect and bound and…

Byleth shoved her plate into the center of the table and stood abruptly. 

Annette stiffened in her seat. “P-professor!”

She smiled at them: bright and fake and a match, a  _ match _ to every smile Claude gave during the war. “Everything will be fine.”

It wasn’t fine. It was painfully far from fine. It was across the sea to Brigid and beyond from fine.

Claude’s skin would have been white as bone if it wasn’t a sickly green-yellow. Marianne’s lower lip wobbles and the dark shadows are back under her eyes. “Professor… It’s good that you came now. There’s not… There’s not much time left.”

Byleth touched his face and his skin was cold, clammy and unresponsive. Though clean, his hair was limp and his eyes were sunken in. Something that felt like it should have been her heart was stuck in her throat blocking out words. She pressed their foreheads together. She didn’t look away. “What happened?”

“Stomach wound. Magic closed the wounds - internal and external - but no spell or medicine has been able to… It could be some kind of magical poisoning. We just don’t know.”

“Did you ask Flayn? Seteth?”

“They… They didn’t know, either.” Marianne pushed her face into view. “I can wake him up for- For a while.”

A tear slipped down her cheek, but she forced the smile from the dining hall back onto her face. “Please.”

Marianne’s hands glowed yellow for a moment. Once the magic set in, she fled the room, giving them privacy.

Green eyes dull even in the vibrant infirmary lights blinked up at her. “Hey there, my friend…” He smiled. A true smile that always came out when he saw her.

“I love you.” Byleth clapped a hand over her mouth as it gave a traitorous sob.

He lifted a hand to her cheek, but it struggled halfway there. She carried it the rest of the way to her cheek, feeling the chill of death sink into her skin. “I love, Byleth. I’m never going to let you go.”

She smiled down at him, even as her tears splashed hot against his hand.

His eyes closed and his arm went limp.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


A wail from the depth of her soul, from the bedrock of the world, escaped her then. Her teeth felt like fangs when she bit off the sound. Refusing to let go of his hand, of  _ him,  _ Byleth bit her lip to bleeding and scoured her memory for anything, everything. She had the power of the progeniture god. She was the beginning and the end. She was  _ not _ going to lose Claude.

Magic blinded her, but she didn’t need eyes to see. Her arteries split open and her blood rushed out, as if attacking him. By inches color returned to his skin until it held only the pallor of the mildly ill rather than the dying. His hand in hers warmed to chill instead of deathly cold. The magic faded and Claude breathed robustly enough for his chest to visibly move. He would be long in recovery, but he would live.


	23. Caspar/Linhardt - Go Through Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 left, baby!

Caspar was not in the habit of waking up somewhere other than where he fell asleep. In fact, since he was a child, it hadn’t happened unless he was severely injured. So that was the first thing he checked. He patted himself down, starting with his face, nose thankfully unbroken, and moving down. He wiggled his toes, which were even in his boots, though they felt loose and liable to fall off. He rubbed his eyes. The sky was moving overhead. The  _ sky was moving. _

He sat up and looked around. The trees moved on either side of the game trail. He was in the back of a rickety, splintered cart being pulled by a mule. Linhardt was slumped on the back of the mule, snoring gently into its hair. 

“Lin! Lin, wake up!” The mule flicked its ears uninterestedly. Though it creaked ominously, Caspar climbed over the wagon and sat on the edge. He looked around for something to throw and found two clumsily packed bags, one overflowing with books and one with a shirt he hadn’t worn in three years poking out. “We’ve been kidnapped!”

With a snort, Linhardt sat up. He yawned, rubbed his eyes and looked around. “Hmm? What are you talking about? No one,” he yawned, “no one’s taken us anywhere.”

“We’re in the middle of the forest! Claude was supposed to attack Fort Merceus today!”

“Can you stop shouting? I’m right here.” 

The mule stopped to chew on a patch of grass that had grown in the middle of the trail. Caspar hopped out of the wagon and stood next to him. “We have to get back, Edelgard’s counting on us.”

Linhardt leaned down and squeezed his shoulder in a punishing grip. There wasn’t a trace of sleepiness on his face. “Edelgard is counting on us to throw our lives away for her conquest.”

“I… Lin? Are you alright? We- We swore an oath to her! Honor says-”

“Go to Gronder Field and ask the dead if honor matters! She’s put me in every single battle. She knows I hate blood. That I don’t want to fight. My magic would have been better healing behind the lines, but she deliberately put me against our classmates as part of a tactic that didn’t even work. I won’t kill for her and I refuse to die for her.”

“I’m sorry, Lin, but I can’t just break my promise.”

“Then you’ll have to go through me first.”

Frustrated tears sprang to Caspar’s eyes. “Why are you being like this? I just want to do the right thing!”

“Is the right thing burning down the world for her dream or is it keeping as many people alive as possible?”

Balling his hands into fists, Caspar struggled for something to say. “I can’t just betray her, Lin.”

“You didn’t. I drugged you, put you in the cart and then  _ I _ betrayed her.” Since Caspar no longer seemed ready to sprint back the way he’d come, he leaned against the mule’s neck again. “This way, you’re alive to be mad at me.”

All of the blood left Caspar’s face at that comment. There was no conviction in his voice when he said, “But what if we won?”

Before Linhardt could answer, the sky screamed. Both young men turned their faces to the small patch of sky visible through the trees. Javelins of light streaked through the clouds, leaving thin trails of white in their wake. Before they could figure out just what was happening, the ground shook throwing Linhardt off the mule and into Caspar’s arms. It continued shaking for several minutes, like a series of earthquakes.

“Wh-what was that?”

“I don’t think anyone won today.”


	24. Marianne & Claude - Big Brother Instinct

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Implied suicidal ideation

Marianne had a particular look in her eyes. A ‘nothing-gets-better’ look. A ‘struggle-is-meaningless’ look. A look Claude saw in the mirror when the fake smiles set with the sun and clouds blotted out the stars. Marianne had a particular look in her eyes, so Claude kept his on her more than anyone else in the house.

There were certain signs he asked others to look for. Sudden energy. A seeming, inexplicable lightening of her burdens. Personal items given away. Thank you, but that handkerchief wasn’t what I meant, Lorenz.

In short, he devoted a great deal of time and energy to Marianne and gained so much sympathy for everyone who had ever had to deal with him. He’d have to send Nader a nice axe. Maybe he could get some Gloucester wine for Judith. So while Marianne didn’t seem to get any better, neither did she seem to get any worse. 

He saw the way she avoided weapons even more than Linhardt, who would occasionally use a sword to cut things rather than find a knife, which lent weight to his theory she had a Crest. Aside from her suspicious interactions with Hanneman, Lysithea, Catherine, Linhardt and pretty much anyone with an eye for Crests. 

She was very, overly really, particular about saying Margrave Edmund was her  _ adoptive _ father, which could suggest she was a bastard or from a bastard line. As much as that would stir up the Roundtable delightfully, Claude doubted it. Really, she did a good job of burying the lead and Claude considered himself quite good at ferreting out other people’s secrets.

Either way, Claude watched vigilantly for signs of trouble or hints as to the source of her troubles.

Which was why he was so very disappointed when it was Fate and not his machinations that gave him some insight. He’d woken beneath a pew in the cathedral after an early evening nap outside had been shooed inside by a light rain. Judging by the height of the moon through the stained glass windows, a vague guess at best, he thought it was some time past midnight. Past midnight and he could hear Marianne praying.

Could  _ hear _ her.

Okay, it wasn’t just that he didn’t get to feel clever. It was what she prayed for that really ruined his night. No one, absolutely  _ no one _ should pray for the goddess to take them. With a silent sigh, Claude pulled a vial of clear liquid from his third secret pocket. The label was written in his own personal shorthand - it was just Almyran words written out in Fodlan letters, but hey, his father hadn’t figured it out, so that was good enough, right? Anyway, he pulled it out, examined the label and winced.

Wince complete, he popped the cork and knocked the liquid as straight down his throat as he could. After returning the empty vial to his pocket, he waited. And waited. And… Moaned in horrible pain, curling around his stomach, legs and head suddenly visible to anyone looking down the aisles. Thankfully, his ruse worked and Marianne found him without much delay, her hands already glowing with White Magic.

Oh it hurt and he’d be hearing colors for  _ days, _ but that’s just what older brothers did sometimes.

He assumed.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the same SW AU as Coincidence!

Sylvain translated the bounty advertisement because Felix never bothered to learn Huttese. “Let’s see, ‘Grey Jedi gone feral.’ Gone feral. Who wrote this, your dad?”

“Get on with it, Sylvain.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, ‘Target last seen in the Corellian Zoo,’ okay, maybe they’re just being accurate. Maybe some padawan touched a relic that gave him the brain of a tukata?”

Felix jabbed him with his elbow. “More reading, less speculating.”

“‘Fully human, but able to tear through bronzium plating with his bare hands.’ That doesn’t sound human to me. Ow! Stop hitting me; I’m reading. Blah, blah, no hazard pay, no Mandalorians-”

“Why no Mandalorians? This kind of kark is right up their alley.”

“Doesn’t say.”

“Of course.”

“So,” Sylvain said, throwing an arm over Felix’s shoulders. “Up for a trip to Corellia? Maybe we can stop in and old Dimitri and Ingrid. Hey, if we’re really lucky, Lorenz will still be there telling everyone how terrible I am at flirting.”

\---

They did run into Dimitri and Ingrid.

Felix held up a single finger. “Don’t say it.”

With his hands on his hips and an expression that couldn’t decide if it was horrified or impressed, Sylvain watched Dimitri rip the head off a statue of Senator Aethran and toss it over his shoulder. “Don’t say what?”

“You know what,” Felix replied. He flicked on his vibrosword and stalked forward, scanning the area without taking his eyes off of Dimitri.

Ingrid sprinted in front of them, scooping up the statue’s head and dragging it with Force-enhanced strength back to the plinth. “Dimitri,” she shouted, oblivious to their company, “Dimitri, there’s no one here! The Senators are all in a meeting on Coruscant.”

“I don’t think he can hear you,” Sylvain called out.

Dropping the statue piece, Ingrid spun around. “Sylvain! Felix! What are you two doing here?”

Sylvain folded his hands behind his neck. “Oh, you know what they say, ‘No coincidences in the Force,” and all that.” He grunted as Felix threw a wave of Force-energy back at him. “Hey!”

“I told you not to say it.” Unapologetic.

“Why do we keep running into you?” Ingrid blew out a breath to get a lock of hair out of her face. It didn’t work, so she used her forearm, her hands covered in… mud and what might have been paint, but looked an awful lot like blood. “I thought you were leading a gang in Hutt Space.”

“First of all,” Sylvain said, trying to catch up to Felix and Dimitri. “It’s neutral space, not Hutt Space.”

“Felix still hasn’t learned Huttese, has he?”

A crude gesture from Felix was all they got before he stepped through the hole Dimitri had ripped in the building.

“And second, we have to pay for our fancy gang hideout somehow, so… Bounty hunting. Don’t shit where you eat and all that.”

“I thought gangs just stole what they needed.”

“That’s what the Jedi want you to think.”

“Why does everything have to be about the Jedi with you?”

“Excuse me, why does everything about the Jedi have to be about the Jedi?”

“You’re not even making any sense!”

By the time they made it into the building, Felix had his lightsaber out and was barely holding his ground as Dimitri threw furniture and chunks of wall at him.

Sylvain rubbed his chin. “So, uh, what happened to him, anyway? This isn’t how toying with the Dark Side usually manifests.”

“For the last time, Dimitri isn’t using the Dark Side!”

At that moment, Dimitri, of course, chose to attack Felix with Force lightning. Sylvain said nothing.

“He’s not himself, alright? I don’t know exactly what happened. He and Dedue went on a mission for our Master and he came back along, missing an eye and refused to talk about it. I think he told Master Byleth, but…” She sighed and swiped the sweat off her forehead, smearing mud and definitely blood on her face. 

“Well, there’s a bounty on him now and the employer isn’t too picky about getting him alive.”

A crash interrupted their conversation. Felix stalked over to the new pile of rubble and pulled Dimitri out of it by his collar. It would have been comical, with their height difference, if not for the pure red of Dimitri’s single eye and the inhuman growl coming out of his throat.

“I hate you so much, Bantha. Always making me clean up your messes.” Ignoring the wordless threats, Felix pressed their foreheads together. White light burst from the connection as Felix’s Force technique took affect.

When the light faded, Dimitri blinked and his hands scabbled at Felix’s armor as if checking to see if he were real. “Felix? Is it truly you?”

Felix dropped him. “Not anymore.” He stalked out of the building. Over his shoulder, he tossed out, “I’m done with him, Ingrid. Fix him yourself because the next time I see him, I’m killing the bantha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm done motherfuckers!


End file.
